This invention relates to article vendors, and more particularly to an article vendor with an elevator for the articles.
The invention is especially concerned with a vendor for food products such as sandwiches, salads, lunch platters, milk in cartons, juices in cartons or cans, desserts including pies, etc.
A problem attendant upon provision of a vendor for food products such as above described is that some of them, such as pies, cannot be dispensed simply by having them drop to a delivery station, but need to be delivered relatively gently so as not to break up upon delivery. The problem may be readily envisioned by considering the dispensing of a piece of pie which, even though packaged, may be broken up if dropped even a short distance. Heretofore, the problem has been generally taken care of by stocking the products on horizontal rotary drums (see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,102,762, 3,107,815, 3,122,401). or in compartments on a horizontally moving endless conveyor (see U.S. Pat. No. 3,147,838). While the rotary drum type of vendor may provide for first-in first-out vending, as is desirable, it has disadvantages of being limited in the number of selections made available and in the display of what limited selections are made available. While the endless conveyor type referred to may provide for display of a large number of selections, it does not involve first-in first-out vending.
Reference may be made to U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,858,042, 3,193,138, 3,294,282, 3,325,049 and 3,608,777 and British Pat. No. 1,000,605 showing the state of the art on article vendors with elevators, and reference may also be made to U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,637,611 and 3,001,669 as showing state of the art rear-to-front endless conveyor type vendors with a front window which may be relevant.